


Crossing Lines

by devovere



Series: Intimacies [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Consent Issues, Episode s02e09 Tattoo, Episode: s02e25 Resolutions, F/M, Intimacy, Oral Sex, Tattoos, cross-cultural relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 12:05:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere
Summary: Immediately follows “Abandon All,” the previous story in this series. Kathryn gets better acquainted with Chakotay, in several senses.





	Crossing Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Some of this story’s material related to Chakotay’s tattoo is drawn from series canon, specifically the episode “Tattoo.” Most of it, however, comes from my own imagination. No portion of this story is meant to represent any specific actual culture or its people. 
> 
> While the notion of consent around a particular type of touch is central to this story, it does not involve anything that most readers will consider sexual. This is why I’m not including a trigger or archive warning. 
> 
> Heartfelt thanks to beta-readers Killermanatee, ruthless excisor of bad telenovela-esque dialogue everywhere, and Klugtiger, the undisputed queen of punctuation for clarity. I shudder (not in a good way) to think of how this story would look without their help. Thanks also to cheile for reading an early incomplete draft and encouraging me to keep certain elements of the story.

Chakotay’s grip on Kathryn’s shoulders gradually eased, and soon he began to snore lightly. Physically, she was still profoundly relaxed from their intense, ecstatic lovemaking, but her mind was alert. She remained where she was, lying atop the full length of his body, arms wrapped under his broad shoulders. His deep and steady breathing lifted her own body up and down like a gentle wave, like he was the ocean and she was floating upon him. 

She reflected on the monumental change that had just taken place in their relationship, unpacking and analyzing her own thoughts as they drifted through her mind. 

Kathryn didn’t have sex casually. She simply didn’t -- never could. ‘Wasn’t wired that way,’ she’d half-joked to Academy friends who had been unable to fathom why someone with her looks and verve wasn’t dating. 

She knew very little about Chakotay’s personal past or predilections. His Starfleet intelligence file said surprisingly little on the matter, save the relationship with Seska that Tuvok had reported. She was fairly sure he’d had no lovers on  _ Voyager _ , although now that she thought about it, she realized that, well, she’d deliberately  _ not _ thought of it during the nearly two years they’d served on board together.  _ Oh, Kathryn _ , she thought now.  _ Who did you think you were fooling? _

Surely, though, this evening had been a turning point from his perspective as well -- if not for the sex, then for the confession of his feelings that had preceded it. He hadn’t used the word “love,” and he’d spoken in parable, but the meaning was clear enough even to her practical mind. He had declared his devotion to her, in ways that went far beyond duty to mission or crew, and which long preceded their stay on this planet. 

Whether this step, entering his bed, had been a wise choice or not -- it was done. They were already stranded alone together on this planet for the rest of their lives. There would be no pulling back from this new intimacy. She didn’t want to, for one thing, but regardless of that, she could see that it wouldn’t be possible. Maybe their love affair would burn out; hopefully they wouldn’t end up hating each other. But they couldn’t pretend this hadn’t happened. Couldn’t rewind the clock and start again. 

With that reality clear in her mind, she looked ahead, not back. Her first officer, her friend, was now her lover, and she was his. What did this new watershed in the terrain of her life demand of her?

Chakotay stirred under her, coming just to awareness from the light doze that had briefly carried him off. The rhythm of his breathing hitched once, then twice, and then his arms came around her again, hands sliding warm and firm along her back, one to a shoulder, the other to a buttock. He murmured something against the top of her head, a low and pleasant rumbling under her ear. 

_ First _ , she thought,  _ round two _ , and brought her lips to his chest. 

His body twitched with his return to full waking. She raised herself slightly, and shifted down just far enough to find his nipple with her mouth. His breathing stopped briefly, and then he exhaled with a small whimper. His hands grew more urgent upon her body, and his penis stirred and stiffened against her inner thigh. 

She was tempted. It would be easy, a matter of centimeters, to align herself with his cock and simply slide down onto him again. She wanted him there, inside her, pressing and gliding. She had a brief mad vision of spending the rest of their natural lives doing just this, joining together and coming only barely, briefly apart, over and over, like the rising and setting of the sun, a perpetual repetition of the one thing that suddenly seemed most true and certain in life: their physical desire for one another. 

But no. There was so much more she wanted, here in his bed. So much of him to learn first. 

She released his left nipple and moved across his body, delighting in the satiny friction of his smooth skin under hers. “Mmmmm…” she hummed, rubbing her face, breasts, and belly against him, feeling altogether like a purring cat as he started to stroke rhythmically down her back, one hand following the other in turn. She arrived at his right nipple, studied it, nearly black in the dim light, touched the tip of her tongue to it, then drew back and blew air through her lips. 

The small bud tightened, puckered, and a shiver ran through his body. She knew a deep and swelling pleasure in making him react, making him  _ feel _ . She brought her mouth over his nipple, kissed, then sucked, then bit lightly, as the fingers of her right hand found the other one and began to tease it. 

He drew breath with a hiss and brought his hands to her head, smoothing the hair back from her face, combing his fingertips in to meet her scalp. She glanced up at him and smiled against his chest to see his head tip back, the adam’s apple in his strong throat bobbing in a convulsive swallow. 

Emboldened, she suddenly brought her palms to the mattress, lifted her body from his, and moved lower. One brief stop en route, making his belly twitch as her tongue dipped into his navel, her fingers caressing his ribs.  _ Ticklish, are we? Noted _ . She hummed in delight and kept going, soon finding wiry curls under her nose, heavily muscled thighs under her hands, and his stiff cock against one side of her face. He released her head with conscious, obvious deliberation, and then started to moan. 

She took her time, content for long moments just to look and fondle. The base of his penis was thicker than her thumb and forefinger together could encompass. The skin of his inner thighs turned out to be more sensitive than that on his scrotum. He welcomed her fingertips’ exploration of the space behind his balls, lifting and spreading his knees without coaxing, tilting his pelvis to bring it into view. His eagerness was so captivating that she had to leave off looking and take a taste. 

Her own scent was strong here, but beneath it he was all salt and musk and deliciously varied textures against her tongue. She gently sucked first one testicle and then the other into her mouth, one hand pressing a thigh away, the other wrapping all its fingers around his shaft, thumb tracing by touch the single thick vein. He panted, every exhalation a short moan, clearly struggling to keep himself still for her. 

She looked up and their eyes met over the length of his body. His head was raised, the tendons in his neck standing out with the effort he was exerting to control himself. His hands rhythmically clenched and released the sheet beneath their bodies. She felt a surge of compassion and the desire to show him that she returned his trust. 

Gingerly, she slid one hand and then the other to cover his fists, slowly but firmly guiding them down to her head. As his strong fingers snaked their way into her hair once again, wrapping around her skull, he looked a question at her. She smiled and nodded reassurance, then opened her mouth and engulfed the head of his cock. 

His head fell back against the bed with an audible thud as he rolled his hips up, seating himself deep in her mouth. He groaned and held her head still, so that she could only breathe around him, using suction and her tongue to massage and stimulate, using her hands to squeeze and stroke the shaft below. 

“Kathryn!” he cried. More panting, another groan, and then again, her name, more desperately. “Please, I can’t -- I’m going to -- “ But his hands stayed firm on her head and he made no move to stop her. 

She raised her eyes up in search of his face, but his head and upper body were arched back away from her, appearing both sinuously muscled and rigid with pleasure. He was clearly on the brink. 

“Mmmmm,” she hummed around his foreskin, increasing her suction, drawing him in just that tiny bit deeper, testing her own limits, loving the challenge and the power of the act. 

“ _ Aaahhhh! _ ” A primal, guttural noise emerged from his throat, and every muscle in his body grew painfully taut under her as he spurted hot into her throat, spasmodically thrusting a short distance further into her. His fingers tugged almost painfully at her hair at the height of his climax, then suddenly relaxed back into fervent caresses of her skull, her hairline and temples. 

She swallowed, swallowed, holding her breath, hands spread flat on his hip bones, mouth and jaw working to keep up and then finally relaxing as she pulled away from him, rising up to kneel between his legs, wiping her mouth with the back of one hand. His hands fell limply away from her head and he simply lay before her, chest heaving, body gleaming with sweat and spent ardor. 

He was beautiful. She’d never seen anyone or anything so beautiful as Chakotay in the aftermath of ecstasy. The clamor of her own sexual arousal faded into the background of her awareness, replaced with a swell of tenderness and gratitude. 

=====

Chakotay opened his eyes and raised his head. Kathryn knelt between his spread legs, hands on her own thighs, gazing at him with fondness, face flushed with pleasure and more open than he’d ever seen it. He felt slow-witted, fumbling even to bring words to mind, almost too boneless to move. His mouth opened but nothing emerged, voice gone. He felt a smile grow on his face, knew he must look goofily euphoric before her somber, still contemplation. “Please,” he croaked out, and reached for her. 

She moved into his arms. They turned on their sides, gazing intently into one another’s eyes. He bent his head slightly to kiss her and stayed there, kissing her deeply, slowly, relishing the warmth of her mouth and breath. Tasting himself on her tongue reminded him all over again of how astonishingly generous she had just been. 

He broke the kiss, caressing her face, then moved his hand down to the curve of her hip. He dragged his knuckles suggestively against the softness of her lower belly. “Let me make it up to you,” he murmured. He started to shift them to a better position, a better angle, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“You will. We have time. Right now,” and she smiled crookedly, a little timid -- timid! -- “I want to look at you.” 

He let his hand fall between them as she pulled away just slightly, the better to see more of him. He watched her face, entranced, feeling suspended in time and adoration. Her gaze traversed the length of his body, all the way to his toes. As her eyes moved slowly back towards his head, she drew her lower lip between her teeth, a small betrayal of carnality in repose. He itched to reach for her again, to take that lip between his own teeth, but held still, letting her look her fill. 

Her gaze came to rest above his left eye, studying his tattoo. He could almost trace its lines in the small careful movements of her irises. Her right hand rose and he braced himself internally for the touch on his brow, but instead she tentatively placed her palm on his chest, met his eyes, and said, “Will you tell me about your tattoo?” 

He blinked. “Uh … sure. What would you like to know?” 

“What does it mean? When did you get it?” She seemed to cut off her questions, self-conscious, smiling at him a little sheepishly. “If -- if it’s not too --”

He broke in, covering her hand with his. “It’s not. I’m happy to talk about it.” 

He told her the story, in brief sentences, minimal details, speaking of his father’s tattoo, their trip in his youth to find a distantly related indigenous tribe in South America, how they’d found the same design worn by some there. 

“I can’t tell you much about its meaning. I was too stubborn as a boy to ask the right questions, and I left our homeworld too young.” He swallowed, old and painful memories flowing unbidden in the wake of this short tale. 

She read the shadow on his face and offered the next line. “Your father died.” She said it plainly, but with compassion, not pity or drama. 

He nodded mutely, took a deep breath. “Yeah. You know about that, I think. The Cardassians, how … I was still in Starfleet. He’d --” and then he had to break the connection, look away. 

She brought her hand out from under his, stroked his forearm, his bicep. She reached toward his face, a move he picked up on in his peripheral vision. He closed his eyes, waiting for her fingers to land on his tattoo. 

Instead, they brushed his cheek, followed his jawline to his chin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. He closed his eyes, feeling dizzy. He clasped her hand, brought her fingers to his mouth, kissing them. 

“I couldn’t get to Dorvan in time for his funeral. But I took my bereavement leave there, helping my mother, spending time with family. That’s when I did it.” He gestured toward the tattoo. “The next day, I sent in my resignation and left for the Maquis.” He remembered the angry reddened skin behind the stark lines of the new tattoo, how the soreness had only just faded by his first skirmish, how, by the time the hair had grown back over the portion on his scalp, his life in Starfleet had felt like some other man's distant dream. 

“So it’s a tribute to your father’s memory.”  

“A tribute,” he muttered. “A penance.” He still couldn’t meet her eyes as his regrets burned hot in him again. The events of this night had opened more doors in his soul than he ever would have predicted, had he been bold enough to imagine their pillow talk. The room still spun around him; the universe was re-aligning itself around this connection of theirs, his openness to her. 

“Anyway, I wear it for him. And his tattoo was for our ancestors before him. It’s my tie to a past I should have embraced long before I finally did.” 

They fell silent. He grew calm again, her steady regard curiously soothing. He raised his eyes to find her still studying his face intently. 

Then, finally, she asked, “May I touch it?” 

A pause. 

“Sure, that’s fine,” he said, performing the nonchalance expected of him. 

Their openness, the charge and connection flowing from heart to heart, must have let his discomfort slip out, must have let her notice how his face tensed just slightly, how the air seemed to cool between them. 

She drew back slightly, puzzled. “No, I don’t think it is, Chakotay.”

“What?”

“You changed, just then. When I asked. You … closed up somehow.” 

And then his throat did close, words and even breath halting, frozen like skittish wildlife caught in a bright light. His mouth opened silently, and in one movement he turned away from her and sat up. 

“I -- I’ve overstepped,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know not to --” and she began to roll away, as if to leave his bed, to give him space. 

Space was the last thing he wanted from this woman right now. His hand shot out, caught her wrist. “Please. Please stay.” 

She froze, then nodded. When she realized he couldn’t have seen the gesture, she placed a hand on his forearm, settling herself again upon the mattress. He released her wrist, and she curled halfway around him, pressing her cheek to his bare back. He drew her arm around his waist and held it, breathing deeply as he tried to master the emotion that had him in its grip. 

Finally, his voice cooperated again. 

“You’re the first woman I’ve been with who has bothered to ask first.” He took a breath, then went on. “I always told myself they didn’t know, it didn’t matter, I was in their world. I didn’t realize --” and he shook his head, still bewildered by his own reaction. “How much it would mean. Until you asked for my consent. Insisted on it.” 

“Oh, Chakotay…” He felt moisture on his back; her tears, he realized, and then her voice continued, husky with emotion. “I wish I could say I understand, but -- I don’t even know what I asked of you, not really. I just --” Her voice took on a familiar, determined tinge, and he felt her sit upright. “I want to know all of you. Everything there is to know about you.” 

He squeezed her hand, then turned in her embrace and put his hands on her upper arms, facing her. “And I want to tell you, and know all about you, too, as much as you’ll share with me. I just -- some of this is really hard to explain. Hard to translate, I guess.” 

She nodded, undeterred. “That’s all right. We’ll work on it together.” 

He brushed her hair back from her face, cherishing the freedom to touch her, marveling that they were sitting naked on his bed, deep in discussion. Reveling in the intimacy of it all. 

He nodded. “Yes. We will.” He took a few breaths, collected his thoughts. 

“Your people,” he explained, “equate the body with the self. Your skin -- “ and here he caressed hers, from brow to shoulder to fingers, “is your boundary, or maybe some personal space around it, and everything upon and within that boundary is yours as an individual.” 

Kathryn nodded. 

“For me, for my people,” Chakotay continued, “these things are ... a little more fluid. We carry one another within us, upon us, and we are carried in turn by others. Including those long dead, our whole history as a people.” He saw her raise a curious eyebrow, knew she was classifying his words as metaphor. “No,” he insisted gently. “It isn't just an idea to me. My ancestors are within me. They hold me up, help me walk forward through my life.” 

He raised his left hand to his forehead and passed it slowly over the tattoo. “When someone touches me here, that’s what they’re laying hands on. It can feel very -- possessive. Intrusive.” 

Her brow knit with concern. 

He went on, looking down briefly. “Some I’ve been with … well, they liked to lick it, taste it. That was even worse, like they were -- I don’t know, making a meal out of my heritage.” He looked up again and saw her lips form a silent “oh” as the sense of his words registered. 

He hurried to add, “I know they likely never meant it that way, no more than I do when I touch you. And now that we are together in this way, Kathryn, so close to one another, I welcome your touch everywhere else, truly.”

She gave him a watery smile, grateful, reassuring. 

“But you see,” he finished, “I can’t give consent on behalf of my father. On behalf of my ancestors. This is the part of me that belongs to them.” 

Kathryn was silent for a long time, studying his face. “Thank you for telling me. I think you explained it beautifully.” Then her blue eyes clouded with doubt, and she glanced down.

“Chakotay?” she asked, sounding hesitant in a way he’d rarely heard from her. “Have I ever -- I mean, obviously I’ve never done anything quite like  _ that _ , but ... “ Her voice trailed away, as if she feared to actually ask the question that clearly troubled her. 

He placed one finger under her chin, pressing her to look at him again. “No, Kathryn. You’ve never been callous about my culture. Not even by accident.” 

“Are you sure? When I don’t even know what I don’t know about it, about you? You’re not just … letting me off the hook for the past because now we’re lovers?” 

_ Universe forbid anyone cut you some slack because they love you _ , he thought, shaking his head.

“I’m sure,” he replied with more heat. “Believe me, Kathryn. I know the type. The bigots, the willfully blind and deaf ones. They’re out there, no matter what the Federation might teach about tolerance.” 

He couldn’t resist touching her again. He grasped the back of her head, lowered his briefly to plant a fervent and reassuring kiss on her mouth. 

With his forehead against hers, eyes locked with hers, he went on, more urgently. “If you were like that, I never would have trusted you to lead us, let alone --” He caught himself and pulled back, shifting his grasp to take both her hands in his. 

They were held silent, his unfinished sentence a kind of spell. 

“Let alone what?” she finally breathed. 

He took a deep breath. This was all so new; he didn’t want to scare her off … but did he imagine she hadn’t been listening tonight, when he’d spun that ridiculous tale about the angry warrior? He stepped off the cliff and prayed he could fly. 

“I wouldn’t have given you my heart. And I did.” He brought her right hand to his chest, the place she always touched, directly over the heart in question. 

“It’s yours now, Kathryn,” he finished quietly. “Even if --” he gestured towards his forehead “-- this can’t be.” 

They sat together in the quiet night, his heartbeat steady under her palm. Finally, she nodded slowly. “Thank you. I will try to be worthy of the gift of your heart.” And she leaned forward to kiss him. 

He held her back by the shoulders. “You already are, Kathryn Janeway. You always have been.” As a stunned look filled her face and before she could argue, he kissed her thoroughly, then wrapped his arms around her and held her against him for a long while. 

Eventually, they lay down again. He covered them both with his blanket and wrapped her up in his arms, spooning together on the narrow bed. Before falling asleep, he remembered and ran a hand along her hip, around a thigh. 

“I still owe you,” he said, nuzzling an ear. 

“You do,” she agreed, smiling sleepily into the crook of his elbow. “But it will have to wait until morning.” 

He was still smiling as he sank into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> A trope in sexy Voyager fanworks is to have someone touching or licking Chakotay’s tattoo, usually without any discussion. With the character’s personal and spiritual backstory relating to his tattoo established early in canon, I find the act fetishistic, even racist. I wondered if it bothered Chakotay, and, if it did, how he might address the subject. This is what came to me.
> 
> \------- 
> 
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